i finished bottling this years honey harvest today. we had about 5 gallons this year(a little smaller than last year's harvest). sorry no pictures, too busy, and hot. i've been sweating all afternoon building plant-pot-stands for my sister's deck plants, and i had a chance to notice it looks like the wind got the better of a roof-patch-repair job i did on an old shed of ours a few days ago. i guess i will be climbing the ladder again soon. I had a nice visit from an old college friend last weekend and hiked crabtree falls; we did it in about 40 minutes, which i think is pretty decent. I'm continuing to fix up my beehives with help from my youth workers. I'm hoping some of these new queens succeed. i plan to check on them in August, and perhaps i can put some of my new frames into use at that time, and maybe do one more late season split if i happen to find a particularly strong looking hive. On a side note, has anyone else noticed kyivindependent.com seems pretty messed up lately? the page doesn't load properly on firefox on my mac, and crashes palemoon. on linux it crashes the entire desktop and requires a restart. i feel like it's been doing this for at least a week now. i wonder if anyone over there even realizes something is wrong? it sort of seems like hacking/malware to me, but i suppose it is possible it is just some chrome-fomo/vibe-code-dev symptom - who knows!
It's been awhile since i have ordered queens, so i was not sure how long i should wait to
give the bees time to eat the candy, and i had a moment and so i went and checked on the
queens today. note for the future, a healthy hive seems to take a little longer than 2
days to eat through the candy and free the queens. the new hives were pretty scarce on
workers and had the least progress on the candy, though all hives seemed to welcome the
new queens when released by popping to cork stopper. i did have one accident where one of
the queens took off and flew away before i could catch her - oops! I'm not sure if the new
hives will be strong enough to support their new queen. i guess we will simply have to
wait and see, since adding frames is still kind of hard given all the cross-comb. I am
still not happy with the shape of my bee-shed. Hopefully things will become easier once
i get all my frames wired up, and i won't have any more disasters and need to order queens.
west
_ _____________ _____________ _
| ||__[n]________||_____[n]_____|| |
| | R C | |
[q]! N? | |
s [r] I? | | n
o |_| |_| o
u _ _ r
t | | | | t
h | | | | h
[n] R I [~]*
| | I [w]
|_| |_|
_ _
| | | |
[b]! I? | |
| | C [n]
| | | |
|_| |_|
east
marks from today(19th)
~ = queen flew away(Oops!)
marks from 17th
I = italian
R = russian
C = carniolan
N = native(my local bread)
? = bees appeared angry at new queen
(the old queen is probably still living)
marks from 13th
q = brood laying queen
n = new box with donated brood comb
r = workers(with pollen+honey) who received donated brood comb
b = butchered hive(probably killed the queen - oops!)
w = workers only(pollen+honey but no brood comb)
! = bearding bees(on the 13th)
So my new queens arrived this afternoon. They were one day late, due to weather holding up transit through Kentucky, though when they arrived all queens and attendants looked nice and healthy - thank you Meyer Bees(and UPS)! I ended up putting all 8 queens in 8 of my 9 hives. i noticed, as i went along, that for 3 hives the bees appeared angry at the queen-cage with the new queen in it, and appeared to bite and sting the steel mesh. All other hives appeared eager to meet the new queen, and crowded on the cage and beat their wings in a more friendly manner. I sort of came to the realization before the end that i must have 3 living queens still from the last operation, including the queen for the "butchered hive". I realized what was going on too late for 2 of the queens, however i made a last minute switch, and left the queened hive in the south-west corner alone, and put the new queen in the previously mean hive(*), which now seemed to be much cheerful having a new queen(i did still use smoke). i had assumed the hive was mean last time because of the temperament of the queen, however i think now maybe it was because i had removed the queen the previous day and put her in a different box. So in the end, it appears i had 3 queened hives and 6 queen-less. 2 of my 8 new queens probably went in a box with a living queen, and thus will probably not survive, however given the situation i'm dealing with, i think it is a fair trade. I'm looking forward to fixing up the rest of my equipment with my helpers, and getting to a point where my hives are not in such bad shape. sorry, no pictures, i was working alone again. maybe i will figure out a solution for this at some point.
west
_ _____________ _____________ _
| ||__[n]________||_____[n]_____|| |
| | R C | |
[q]! N? | |
s [r] I? | | n
o |_| |_| o
u _ _ r
t | | | | t
h | | | | h
[n] R I [q]*
| | I [w]
|_| |_|
_ _
| | | |
[b]! I? | |
| | C [n]
| | | |
|_| |_|
east
q = brood laying queen
n = new box with donated brood comb
r = workers(with pollen+honey) who received donated brood comb
b = butchered hive(probably killed the queen - oops!)
w = workers only(pollen+honey but no brood comb)
* = aggressive today(when entrance disturbed)
! = bearding bees
I = italian
R = russian
C = carniolan
N = native(my local bread)
? = bees appeared angry at new queen
(the old queen is probably still living)
It's funny how, when you haven't done something in a long time, it takes you a little while to remember how to do it. here, are some pics from yesterday's beehive repair session with my high-school helpers(i still need to ask their parents' permission to show their picture). Also, here is the 2nd iteration of my little ice-chest-box-fan-cooler. Doing stuff for the first time can be a bit of a journey as well, and while it is definitely melting the ice faster, it still is pretty minimal as far as changing the temperature of the room. i think i think any further improvement would probably require bigger coils(perhaps an old car radiator), and an even bigger pump, and more ice. it might also improve it to drip the condensate back into the ice-chest. alternatively i could focus on my heat-pump install job i still have to do(along with installing ductwork and fixing insulation). Longterm i definitely plan to use the heat-pump primarily, however right now the heat is really unbearable, and i'm sort of looking for a quick fix to help me survive in there while i work on the larger job. Perhaps i could set it up to sit right next to my desk and blow cool air directly onto me and maybe that will be sufficient. Anyway, it looks like the boss is finally going to do something about the lack of storage space around here, and it appears we are going to get a factory-outlet-metal-building to help with organizing all the materials and tractor implements currently contributing to junk inside everywhere, so hopefully i'll be able to move stuff around soon, and start making progress on some of these indoors clean-up jobs. Anyway, one of my watermelons appears to have made it to harvest - we have had a wet July this year. And i had a chance to start on my honey processing. Hopefully once i get my frames rewired(with help from my youth laborers) i will be able to solve my cross-comb issue, and i can begin to extract honey in a more conventional way, however for the moment, i'm still just doing the mash-it-up-with-a-stick method, and then into my 5-gallon-bucket-strainer. That is all for now.
I noticed i made an error with the little drawing of my bee-shed from the post on the 13th. fixed it!
here's a pretty neat video i found this morning - and a good summary of our current predicament: You Are Witnessing the Death of American Capitalism i wish i had taken notes when i started it, but at this point i have already done my PT routine and i am too tired now and need to work on my honeycomb. i wish more creators would find a different video host.
Well, i got out to work with the bees on Saturday(and again today), and managed to harvest some honey, as well as perform some butcher-knife splits, and do some assessment. here are my notes:
july/12/2025 noon:
this morning, starting at the crack of dawn, i loaded up the truck and went to my bee shed
and harvested honey and split my hives. i wish i had started with the splits, as the first
hive i worked on did not have the honey in the old comb on top like i expected, and i
wasted a lot of good brood comb that otherwise could have gone towards splits. I'm still
struggling with the cross-comb, and so i have not been doing my regular hive inspection.
as a result, i didn't realize that all of my splits earlier in the season had kind of not
worked. Of my 6 hives, only 3 brood activity. in 2 of the splits it appeared a significant
number of workers remained, and there was some honey to harvest, however i am realizing i
need to order queens. perhaps if i had been more diligent this spring i would not be in
this situation. perhaps there is still a chance to make this season a success. i collected
a fair amount of honeycomb - probably 10 gallons or more worth of honey. I will have to
order queens now for the empties and the new splits i did today. i don't know why i did
such a crude job back in Spring. I have done surgery on cross-comb before, and that is what
i did today. Also, lifting a whole 10-deep box is not nice for your back, especially when
you are doing hovering squats because you don't want to crush any bees. all in all, i ended
up taking some brood frames from my 2 queened hives that i didn't butcher, and placed them
into 5 boxes either containing queen-less bees or new clean empty frames. one of my splits
from April was so puny that i'm calling the weaker box a lost cause. both boxes from
another other split are now completely without any frames of brood, one of the boxes being
queen-less, and the other having just been butchered and the queen likely killed - oops.
this all resulted in me now having 9 boxes with bees in them to some significant degree, 2
of which contain a queen, and 5 only containing donated brood-comb, 2 more have bees but no
brood, 1 of which may or may not still have a queen.
west
_ _____________ _____________ _
| ||__[n]________||_____[n]_____|| |
| | | |
[q] | |
s [r] | | n
o |_| |_| o
u _ _ r
t | | | | t
h | | | | h
[n] [q]
| | [x]
|_| |_|
_ _
| | | |
[b] | |
[w] [n]
| | | |
|_| |_|
east
q = brood laying queen
n = new box with donated brood comb
r = workers(with pollen+honey) who received donated brood comb
b = butchered hive(probably killed the queen - oops!)
w = workers only(pollen+honey but no brood comb)
x = lost cause(there is a spider living in there)
note: all hives are 2 boxes tall now, with some amount of comb-frames in the top box
and the bottom box empty. upper-landing boards are either slatted or open on the
inside.
i still need to fix up the entrance reducers on the new hives, though it is threatening
to rain now, and i had plans for later today, so perhaps i will have to finish up
tomorrow. also, given the stress i just put my bees through, i should probably start
feeding now in prep for winter. the last 2 seasons i have not faired as well as usual
with respect to numbers. usually i will start the season with 10 hives or so, and catch
multiple swarms throughout Spring, however, last season couple seasons, i have not caught
any swarms, and my numbers have been dwindling; this Spring i started with only 3 hives.
all i can think of is hearing the news that spotted lantern flies arrived in our area as
of 2 years ago, and orchardists have been spraying more as a result. this would match what
i'm seeing as far as no swarms, and i imagine a swarm that strays into the orchard during
spraying does not fair well. However, i don't think it is the end of beekeeping quite yet.
i have a plan, hopefully i can implement it, starting with fixing all my frames so i can
solve my cross-comb problems, and do a better job of propagating my bees manually.
Sunday jul/13th:
i finished installing entrance reducers and jar-holders on all hives this morning, as well
as removing the lost cause box, and replacing it with a catch-box already containing some
bees and empty comb from the south-east corner of the shed. the next job is to re-queen all
the queen-less hives. since all my previous queens were ones i had had reared myself, none
of them are marked, and in addition with all the cross-comb problems it is very unlikely i
will find the queens. So, i have 8 queens on order(4x italian, 2x russian, 2x carniolan),
and there are now 9 hives in the shed. in the map below i have marked the hives that
contained living queens at the start of yesterday, however at this point, i am not entirely
sure if the queens were moved to one of the new hives during the splits. i supposed i will
have to make a decision on which hive does not get a new queen - it is either that or
combine a hive. i have a sneaking suspicion on where one of the queens is likely to
be(based on temperament today), so i think i have a basic plan. note, each of the hives is
box with comb overtop an empty box at this point. i am unsure if i will have to try and
expand the hive with all the bearding bees - perhaps i'll see how it goes and maybe do a
late-season split?
west
_ _____________ _____________ _
| ||__[n]________||_____[n]_____|| |
| | | |
[q]! | |
s [r] | | n
o |_| |_| o
u _ _ r
t | | | | t
h | | | | h
[n] [q]*
| | [w]
|_| |_|
_ _
| | | |
[b]! | |
| | [n]
| | | |
|_| |_|
east
q = brood laying queen
n = new box with donated brood comb
r = workers(with pollen+honey) who received donated brood comb
b = butchered hive(probably killed the queen - oops!)
w = workers only(pollen+honey but no brood comb)
* = aggressive today(when entrance disturbed)
! = bearding bees
note: I will probably start feeding for Winter now, since my bees are in such sorry shape.
I need to do better!
I had a moment today and stopped and took some pictures of the shed on the back road. There was a flower in front which tells me is Iris domestica. i don't remember that being there last year. You can see the rotten spot in the roof and soffit. You might also notice i never got around to removing the old ground posts after lifting the whole shed up on blocks last summer. Hopefully, i'll get a spare moment to patch the roof-leak, but i sort of have as a top priority to install this heat pump, and there is a bit of a clean up job still ongoing related to that. There is also the chestnut vacuum i still need to finish. And do i even have time to harvest honey? Tomorrow is the 4th. It feels kind of ironic to be celebrating. I can't even keep up with all the twists and turns in Trump World at this point. And it's not like i am a super eager democrat, but at least with Biden i didn't feel like i was having an existential crisis all the time. Anyway, I hope everybody has a nice South-Pole-Xmas! Edit: have to add this:
Proton Mail is working again this morning! Hooray!!! Now i have some more time to decide if i want to keep them or not. I think the lesson hear is that i very much need to find a backup ASAP, perhaps by renewing my Mailfence subscription. Would someone kindly tell Mailfence they need to list their parent company's name more prominently on the site? i didn't know they were a subsidiary. i think it is Contact Office Group? i very much need to get back into my health and fitness routine here. I've got a toothache again and seeing stars. i'm pretty sure i'll have a stroke if things don't change. I guess i'm off to my advanced zumba class now. maybe there will be some time this afternoon to go around and work on some more stuff around here, and maybe document some things and do some planning. i really got to get this heat-pump done - also probably need to fix up insulation.
Well, it looks like proton mail is still not working for me. it is a major pain to basically have email totally quit on me, i wish i could say i didn't see it coming. and i wish it didn't feel like i was running out of time to get everything done, but that just seems to be the boat i am in. i did some mowing this afternoon(something i do not love). i mowed around some of my melons as well as the shed with the busted roof. it's too bad i didn't take any pictures of the shed. i was thinking about that job, and it might be faster and cheaper to just fix it with tar and some kind of patch - maybe it will hold up well enough for a little while. bringing up any sort of subject to the boss is kind of difficult here. actually speaking in general is sort of a problem here; it is best to do things on the sly, which means i have next to no money to budget any project - why don't you earn some money you might ask? i have my reasons. Anyway, it looks like i have some surviving watermelons, and cantaloupes. it looked like dear had been nibbling on some of the watermelons vines, and so i put some cages around them. for some reason i had not realized watermelons have tendrils and will grasp on to things. i knew this about cantaloupes, but somehow had missed the memo on watermelons. There are definitely some problems with weeds. in the future i will have to fix this. and perhaps next year i'll have the greenhouse vents installed, and they don't get scorched. Some of last year's beans volunteered again on my little pergola behind the shed by the melon patch. At least i'm ending the day on a positive. hopefully the rain continues and i don't have to water(since i'm already busy enough).
What the hell is going on with webdesign these days where links are not links? And when i inspect this element i can see it is a button(with some funky "dataid"), however viewing page source seems to feed me only a file that contains no buttons??? Am i not supposed to right click links anymore? i managed to file a complaint with proton. i don't know if i will ever hear back. i'm trying figure out this problem.
It looks like it is time to quit Protonmail. They seem to have decided to stop serving my computer. And apparently all mail servers are up, so there is no excuse for not logging me in: . I wonder if i will have to install Chrome just to cancel service? What a bunch of bilbos! I feel pretty dumb for not quitting when service started getting glitchy on a regular basis, and I had to install Pale Moon(which they don't officially support - i came from firefox esr) just to keep using the service. here is the error btw: "Something went wrong We couldn't load this page. Please refresh the page or check your internet connection. Error: TransformStream is not defined" and in the console: "Content Security Policy: Couldn’t parse invalid host 'wasm-unsafe-eval'" Apparently this was already a problem for users of Drive back in February(i don't us drive): I guess i have to quit them now. what a headache. And Mailfence seems to want to hide the fact that they are a subsidiary for some reason. I am seriously thinking of renewing my account at Mailfence. They seem to do a better job at keeping things functioning and stable and supporting a diversity of systems. However, it would be nice if Mailfence stated somewhere on their site that they are a subsidiary of ContactOffice Group, just so i would be in the know when i get a suspicious looking charge from Brussels, and then don't have resulting banking problems. No joke, my bank texted me, and when i didn't recognize the chard they had to reissued my card. What a pain! Perhaps i just need to switch exclusively to using my web-host's email service. Spam filtering is pretty basic on Roundcube though. BTW, is anybody else getting tons of text&voice spam the past year? I don't know what changed to enable all the scammers? it would be nice someone in government did something about this problem. This i kind of a major problem. i have accounts that rely on proton.me. why does it stop working? is it node.js? hey drive works!: https://drive.proton.me/u/1 ...mail still does not. i got to cancel these guys - and switch all my accounts to a new provider, but who? i'm ending this ramble here. it looks like i'm stuck on the computer for a little longer today.
I had some time this morning and was doing some brainstorming and ended up making a little price analysis about construction and storage sheds. It's a bit long, and perhaps I should make a detailed blog post some time, however i am still planning to redisign the main blog some time soon and am not ready yet currently. Anyway, I was thinking about the cost of creating some basic storage space, where i could save(and work on) materials for various projects, and hopefully free up space in the main building for the big clean-up there. The type of space i am thinking of is pretty basic, and the idea is mainly for storage or simple jobs that don't require electricity or plumbing. small sheds that keep out the wind and rain are obviously one solution. here is a price check from a local supplier(July/2025): https://oldhickorybuildings.com/utility-shed/ https://orders.oldhickorybuildings.com/neworder 8x8x7 $2601 8x10x7 $2781 10x12x7 $3663 12x16x7 $5346 12x16x8 $5346 14x18x8 $7893 16x20x8 $9981 16x32x8 $14148 One other solution might be to build a metal roof open-air shed under which to store tractor attachments so they don't take up space in the barns. Actually most of these implements are already out in the grass getting rained on. It would be good work out a better solution for this. here is a price check for a minimal metal roof structure: https://alansfactoryoutlet.com/virginia-carports/ currently(July/2025) lists 24x25x8 with vertical panels as $3310 Another probably beneficial structure to build might be some sort of in-ground cellar type building, to take advantage of the cellar temperature effect for items that are susceptible to damage by either heat or freezing - i'm not sure about off-the-shelf/prefab solution for this type of thing though, so no estimate as far as cost here(i'll an excavator and mason). Anyway, none of these proposals will likely be approved any time soon, and so i think the next step might be for me to finish the repairs i started last summer on the old shed down the back road. it is not really a big solution, but it might be sufficient for me to get certain things moved away(like empty beehives). last summer i lifted and poured new footers for the old shed, and this year i am hoping to fix the roof where it is damaged in one corner and is beginning to rot a hole to the outside. The backroad shed about 16ft x 8ft? the roof overhangs a little with each side requiring panels about 4.5 ft long to span from eves to ridge. https://www.legacymetalcenter.com/blog/types-of-metal-roofing/ 3' (PBR-12" or Tuff Rib-9") panel Galvalume steel roofing How to Install Metal Roof Edge Flashing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gcv3LvgDt4 deeper roofs make going with a longer panel more cost effective: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gibraltar-Building-Products-6-ft-Corrugated-Galvanized-Steel-31-Gauge-Roof-Panel-13511/202092960 18x = $311 waynesboro home depot (some overhang on eves) https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ondura-35-in-x-79-in-Panel-in-Red-1193/313183177 12x = $263 harrisonburg home depot (significant overhang on eves and gables, cut and save excess?) i will also need to buy various trim pieces and fasteners as well as probably some lumber. total conservative estimate is probably less than $500 for all materials.
Yesterday i managed my first (somewhat)successful test of my little DIY ice-cooler home-AC contraption. I can't say it was a huge game-changer, and i think my little window AC unit is still an order of magnitude more effective, but it did give me an idea about how much ice would be necessary to cool a modest dwelling for 3 months out of the year here in Virginia. I think the number i came up with was in the like 10-20 tons of ice needed minimum depending on if you wanted to have cooling for all or half of the day for the 90 days. My little test used much less ice, though i think it potentially showed some promise as a dehumidifier. However, when considering the price of all the materials, you end up not much better off than if you just bought the cheapest compressor driven dehumidifier. I also still need to measure how much water it actually takes out of the air. At least my indoor humidity is down in the 30%s even if the temperature climes a little high sometimes. Here are the extended notes about my home cooling with ice rig: Also, i have flax seeds!
Today is the 2nd, and i'm trying to catch up with a few little updates from around here from the end of June. First, i did manage to melt a beehive with my hot-air rig. i'm still working remelting and filtering my collection of old wax. hopefully i'll go to the hardware store some time soon, to get a few things i am missing related to creating candle molds. Also, i relocated my seedling pots to a shadier spot. i also potted a few more nuts(hopefully they take this time), and i also trying to improve my squirrel protection setup. I'm still not done, however so far there have been no attacks - maybe it is because it is late in the season. I also planted a few willows i started from live-stakes. hopefully i can keep them alive, and when they take off i will have a source of willow canes. The little aluminum can tubes i made work much better in summer when the soil isn't frozen, however i am still thinking i will switch to pvc or a recycled plastic solution, and save my aluminum for a cleaner application. Also, last thing, i finally got around to getting a small load of sawdust for my compost heap. I got it from my local sawmill. it's pretty dirt cheap, though i got the sense that they would be happier if i bough a whole dump-truck's worth.
